


Dinner Through Their Decades: An Evening with Kei Tsukishima and Tobio Kageyama

by joeysnowy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Theatre, M/M, Vanity Fair Article, in which i can only think abt kgtsk if i'm looking at them from the outside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27368401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joeysnowy/pseuds/joeysnowy
Summary: On a rainy evening in Brooklyn, I arrive windswept and chilled on the front steps of the Tsukishima-Kageyama house with my husband, Shinsuke Kita, and our photographer, Osamu Miya, in tow. Immediately we are swept into the glowing household by none other than Kei Tsukishima himself, dressed in a signature black turtleneck and a neat apron tied around his waist.“Come in, come in,” he ushers us, holding back the collar of a little dog who is yapping curiously at his side. Behind him, I can see Tobio Kageyama, the other man of the house, scooping up a calico cat and banishing it off to a side room.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Tsukishima Kei, Kita Shinsuke/Ojiro Aran
Comments: 5
Kudos: 58





	Dinner Through Their Decades: An Evening with Kei Tsukishima and Tobio Kageyama

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know how i ended up writing this except two days ago i was sent into a nyc theatre au spiral that lasted nearly 5 hours and then yesterday i was possessed to make this. enjoy
> 
> much love to will, izzy, and the entirety of the hqgayppl server who put up with our bullshit!

**Dinner Through Their Decades: An Evening with Kei Tsukishima and Tobio Kageyama**

By ARAN OJIRO・Written for VANITY FAIR

On a rainy evening in Brooklyn, I arrive windswept and chilled on the front steps of the Tsukishima-Kageyama house with my husband, Shinsuke Kita, and our photographer, Osamu Miya, in tow. Immediately we are swept into the glowing household by none other than Kei Tsukishima himself, dressed in a signature black turtleneck and a neat apron tied around his waist.

“Come in, come in,” he ushers us, holding back the collar of a little dog who is yapping curiously at his side. Behind him, I can see Tobio Kageyama, the other man of the house, scooping up a calico cat and banishing it off to a side room. 

[photo: Kei Tsukishima standing by the front door, cradling the couple's terrier in his arms. He wears a black turtleneck and a simple patterned apron over his clothes. His attention is focused on the dog, mouth half-open in a croon.]

The home of Kageyama and Tsukishima is warm and wonderfully domestic, a testament to their long and devoted partnership, both professional and personal. Yellow lamps set the mood in a cozy and creative space designed by Tadashi Yamaguchi (a longtime friend of Tsukishima’s, having done set work for his productions in the past). There are prints up on the walls, postcards from Tokyo and San Francisco, and an abstracted vase holds ferns to greet you in the entryway. Notably missing, though, is any trace of the couple’s dedication to the arts, save for Kageyama’s single Tony (Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play, won for his recent production of  _ The Humans _ ) and a couple of photobooks arranged on the coffee table. When I inquire about this, Tsukishima shakes his head and laughs. 

“Work stays upstairs,” he says. “I’ve had enough musical posters to wallpaper a lifetime of homes.”

It’s an understandable philosophy. Born to a pit violinist and brother of Akiteru Tsukishima (child-actor-turned-art-director at the New York Acting School), Kei Tsukishima has had his life filled to the brim with dramatic productions. He studied stage management at Tisch, which is where he first met Kageyama, close to 30 years ago. The two are famous not for illustrious careers apart but rather devoted ones to each other, having quietly gotten married after working together off-Broadway for a decade. Kageyama has gotten more lax on his “no Broadway” recent years, taking on creative endeavors on the big stage with director Chikara Ennoshita and playwright Daichi Sawamura (both of whom having a long creative history with the couple), but always, always has he come back to working with his husband. Having worked with Shinsuke for only a few years, it’s a dedication I quite admire.

[photo: The quiet foyer of the household. In focus are the hooks on the walls, carved in the shape of leaping fish, holding a variety of coats and bags. Above it is a small wooden plaque that reads "I'll be your star." In the background, out of focus, is Aran Ojiro and Shinsuke Kita, seated opposite Tobio Kageyama in an armchair.]

We’re seated in their living room by Kageyama, who settles into an armchair and lets the little dog (whose name is Hime, I learn) leap into his lap. Tsukishima excuses himself to attend to dinner in the kitchen, and Osamu follows him, hoping to catch a few shots of the Director At Home At Work, I can only assume. Shinsuke and I are left in the warm room with Kageyama, who keeps up a quiet conversation about his current production of  _ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf _ , in rehearsals and set to premiere in a few short months. Kageyama plays George, opposite Shimizu Kiyoko’s Martha, and it’s a notable break from the charming and brooding men Kageyama has played in the past. I ask about working with Kiyoko and Kageyama is lit within with a smile.

“I think Martha is meaner than [Kiyoko]’s used to,” he says, musing on his co-star’s penchant for accepting tragedies. “Shimizu has always been raging against something [in her roles], but this time it all has to come from within, and from me. She’s really good.” It seems like faint praise, but coming from the quiet actor, it’s a raving review. 

[photo: Tobio Kageyama, with the terrier from before in his lap, mid-conversation. He looks out of the shot with the serious quality to his face discussing work brings. He's dressed in a simple white button-down and dark pants.]

Tobio Kageyama got his start fresh out of graduation at Tisch, when he was plucked from his university productions and pushed to audition for Keishin Ukai’s take on  _ Moby Dick _ , written and composed by Dave Malloy. Charming and sweet, he stole audiences’ hearts as Stubb, the second mate of the whale-hunting Pequod. From there, he seemed set on taking on Broadway by storm-- until a quiet break in his career led him to only accept Off-Broadway and more experimental theatre roles. It was a choice that puzzled critics and theatre fanatics alike at the time, as Kageyama is a pointedly private person, but as we talk, the answer to that sharp turn in his career becomes quite clear.

“It’s always been Kei,” Kageyama says, with his eyes cast toward the kitchen. “He didn’t direct; back then, he was always stage manager. But that’s a hard job, especially on larger scale productions. Bad stage managers can kill a production.”

Tsukishima takes this moment to urge us to the dining room, where I can smell the fragrant tones of coq au vin and freshly baked dinner rolls. We’re seated at a low ovular table, with a pendant lamp casting a golden glow over the room. Kageyama slides out a vinyl from a shelf in the living room and sets it on their vintage record player, filling the home with crooning saxophone and jazz. Osamu helps to uncork a bottle of Pinot Noir, and we settle in for one of the warmest and most pleasant dinners I’ve had in recent memory.

[photo: The hosts, seated together on one long end of the table. Kageyama is standing, setting down a plate of bread rolls, and Tsukishima is gazing up at him with a look one can only describe as fond.]

Tsukishima, evidently, besides being a good director, stage manager, and playwright, is a wonderful cook. He takes the praise we shower upon him bashfully, but Kageyama, whose eyes almost never leave his husband if they’re in the same room together, nudges him with a stern look.

“You’re a man of many talents, Kei,” Kageyama says. Tsukishima bows his head with a faint smile.

“Coming from the man of a single talent, that doesn’t mean a lot,” he snipes back, but I can tell from watching them that their light bickering comes from a place of love.

It’s a rare privilege to get to even glimpse this part of their lives together. Even before they were married, Kageyama was reticent in the details of his life, though many were no doubt curious of the talented young upstart from the middle of nowhere. As someone lucky enough to have been acquainted with Tsukishima before his directorial debut, I can say that Tsukishima was the same. The two of them are practiced in keeping their professional lives separate from their private lives, which I find a feat given how the conversation at the table slides easily between the two.

Tsukishima gives us a brief outline of the play he’s working on at the moment-- an adaptation of Markus Zusak’s 2004 novel  _ I Am The Messenger _ , which follows a young cab driver, Ed, following a series of tasks to help the lives of the people in his small town. “I’m used to adaptational work,” he says, referring to the work he’s done with Ennoshita on  _ Gawaine and the Green Knight _ , a take on the Arthurian poem that follows the knight Gawaine on a quest to keep his honor and chivalrous nature. The play as written has specific instructions to cast a female actress in the role of Gawaine. “I quite like seeing where I can put my own spin on things, push the boundaries of the original fiction to reach a full potential.”

It seems to be an inside joke between the couple, judging by the way Kageyama smiles down at his wine glass. I quietly note the way their chairs have migrated together over the course of the meal, almost creating a sort of loveseat at the table.

Tsukishima’s original work is not to be dismissed, at any rate. His first play,  _ The President Is Calling _ , was a critic favorite the year it premiered off-Broadway, winning its playwright and its two lead actors (Koutarou Bokuto and Tsutomu Goshiki, as mad scientists trying to save the world) Obie awards and much acclaim. From there, he collaborated with Daichi Sawamura on a satirical and energetic review of, among other things, the tides, New York party life, and blossoming love ( _ Shore Home _ ). His most recent play,  _ The Swamp Wife _ , came after a sabbatical to the Louisiana marshes inspired him to write the desperate and near-absurdist tale of a woman who abandoned her fiancé at the altar to go on a research trip to study swamps, slowly realizing over the course of the play that her humanity is more apparent in that damp, wild environment-- eventually choosing to lose herself in it all together.

On each of these originals, it’s important to note, Kageyama has never starred, but he’s worked on them all the same--he was a minor character in _Shore Home_ , dashing in and out of the protagonist’s scenes to draw laughs from the audience, and in _The President Is Calling_ , though he was in a production of _Catch Me If You Can_ at the same time, you could hear a recording of his cool monotone voice as the scientists’ alarm system. _The_ _Swamp Wife_ , I learn, is the work with his biggest influence-- but one perhaps no one would realize.

“I was the one who pushed him to go to Broadway,” Kageyama says with a smirk, a little something like pride humming underneath his words. “It had real potential, and people really loved it, but he would have never made the leap if I hadn’t told him to. All of his plays could have made it if he really wanted them to.”

Tsukishima knocks his elbow into Kageyama’s, eliciting a laugh, but he’s smiling and he doesn’t deny the claim.  _ The Swamp Wife _ was predicted by many to be a top contender for a Tony, perhaps even two, only to have its run cut short by a mix of demands from producers and the theatre shutting down for repairs. Neither man seems to hold much of a grudge, however.

“That’s how theater is,” Tsukishima shrugs, not seeming too bitter about it. “I’ve never expected much for myself in this career; I worked three jobs up until a few years ago just to keep the bills paid. And Broadway is no measure for artistic merit,” he adds, a slight nod to  the times he's made his views on the current state of Broadway and West End very clear . I can tell, perhaps, that he is holding himself back some on this point, just to save himself face, but even a cursory glance over his resumé shows his disdain for the big stage.

Talk eventually turns to the beginning of the two’s career, and how they had met after college working together in a small off-Broadway revival of Rogers and Hammerstein’s  _ Oklahoma! _ , which  my husband had the pleasure of reviewing when it premiered. Tsukishima recounts with a laugh the initial animosity that sparked between them.

“You know, I had heard rumors that the Star of the Stage was set for that new musical everyone had been buzzing about at the time, and then here he is showing up as Curly for this tiny little black box theatre,” he says. “Hotshot actor with everybody’s eyes on him, and he chooses to spend his time with this? I thought he wouldn’t take it seriously enough, which is the last thing a stage manager needs.”

In fact, Kageyama seemed to take the role incredibly seriously, though the actor and stage manager had their squabbles often. Kageyama was a magnetic love interest, and played next to Atsumu Miya’s dramatic, frustrated Jud Fry, his Curly was almost meltingly sweet. (Atsumu Miya also happens to be the twin brother of Osamu, who, though has acted beside his brother, has quit acting and become our photographer for the night. It leads to some fond reminiscing of the stage by Kageyama and Osamu.)

Kageyama’s early career, after that, is harder to follow, as he took on productions that nearly fizzled in theatres that have since been demolished. It's easy to know where he was going, though, because “he was following me,” Tsukishima says with a roll of his eyes. “I thought it was a coincidence at first, a mistake on him or his agent or something. But every new show I worked on, there would be his audition tape, as if he was the same as every other young actor breaking into Broadway right then.”

“I wanted to play to smaller audiences,” says Kageyama with a light shrug, and the look that passes between them says there's definitely more to that than I could possibly know. 

That early spotlight began to dim, in that first decade, as Kageyama hopped from small show to small show. They were often originals, though he returned to Malloy once, and then to Sondheim in a run of  _ Merrily We Roll Along. _ You can find traces of him online in the reviews that follow him, still stealing scenes and dazzling the audiences, even if they were in smaller numbers. He even dipped a toe into the big screen once in a Vimeo exclusive short film,  _ Where I Lay _ , a quiet prodigal son story after the death of the patriarch in a family. It’s the only work Kageyama has done on film, and when I ask if there are any plans to do more, the actor shakes his head.

“Probably not for a while,” he says with a glance at Tsukishima. (I learn very quickly that they communicate in such glances, years of partnership having attuned them to each other with minute senses.) “Film is different from theatre, in a lot of ways, and I like feeling alive in a theatre. I don’t want to squander that yet.”

After nearly a decade of Kageyama chasing Tsukishima’s stage managerial talent, Kageyama finally starred in Tsukishima’s directorial debut,  _ How To Keep Trying _ , written by Sawamura with original music composed by Koushi Sugawara. It follows a man and his husband preparing to go home to visit family, packing themselves like doomsday preppers to see the end of the world. 

“And what was that like, finally being able to work together creatively?” Shinsuke wants to know.

The two of them share another glance and a smile. “Easier than breathing,” says Tsukishima. When the show closed, they tied the knot at last. A partnership to last them decades to come.

-

When dinner wraps up, we retire again to the living room, as Kageyama and Shinsuke clear the table. I’m offered a fresh pot of coffee that I politely decline, given the late hour. Tsukishima pours himself a steaming cup in a mug that reads “BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS” in bold lettering.

“He frustrates me,” Tsukishima says with a fond smile. “Tobio’s always frustrated me. I’ve been around good and bad actors alike, and I could tell right from the start he was a truly good actor. Nothing in the world fills him with more joy than acting.”

Setting down his mug on the table, he looks at a print up on the wall, an abstracted human figure curled up upon itself. “Most people who have seen his performances are surprised at what he’s like. When we were younger, he was more rude, unable to really express his meaning clearly without coming off as crass. But when he’s acting, he isn’t like that at all. He’s charming and he knows what words to say, and there’s no chance of misinterpretation.”

“It frustrates you that he acts?” I ask.

Tsukishima looks at me, surprised. “Not at all. I’ve dealt with Tobio a thousand different ways, and I like them all. But I’m not the one who should be.” He laughs, faintly, and subconsciously or not his fingers begin to twist the ring on his hand. “I’m not the kind of artist Tobio should be acting under, you know? He deserves audiences like Broadway, like West End. If anyone could change the world through theatre, I’d believe in him.”

-

The night winds down, and the five of us are left to reminisce on theatre of old and new. Kageyama brings out a plate of buttery cookies, and we swap tales of this actor or that costume designer or that show with a kind of contentment that makes me feel as if I’m around a campfire. The side room door cracks open, and the little calico who I had seen at the beginning of the night winds her way around my legs and leaps up to the arm of the couch. “Her name is Iris,” Tsukishima supplies, as the cat cranes up her head for chin scratches.

The room is gracious and warm and nearly filled to the brim with love, and it’s in no small part due to the partnership found between Tsukishima and Kageyama. The two of them have learned, through the years, that what makes successful art is not worth the trouble of making good art, art that takes time and love and care. It’s easy to see why, though they don’t seek out to please the world, audiences have found every part of their work stunning. The tension and history between the two brings it life.

“I don't think I'll ever end up doing feature film,” Kageyama says to me, in a quiet moment when Tsukishima’s taken the dog outside and Shinsuke excuses himself to the bathroom. “Which Kei gets mad at me for saying. I do have the talent for it, I know, and I’m still not too old for it. But…” he sighs. “It would be different, and it would probably take me away from the city for a while. And Kei’s not very fond of working with the screen. Short films are fine for me, but the kinds of work on features and tv shows… I’m much more content here, orbiting him and his work for the rest of time if I have to. Fuck success, fuck the consequences. I've got him.” ◼️

[photo: Kageyama and Tsukishima in the kitchen, laughing together.]

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @millenniumbreak, tumblr @apostropheis, or just go look at my carrd happierstories.carrd.co


End file.
